


Someone To Walk Beside Me

by CopperBeech



Series: The Shelter Of Your Wings [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse, Anal Sex, Angry Crowley (Good Omens), Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Dissociation, Hand Jobs, Hurt Crowley, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, POV Crowley (Good Omens), PTSD, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), Recovered Memories, bartenders are dope, do not copy to another site, sexual healing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:01:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22120732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CopperBeech/pseuds/CopperBeech
Summary: Aziraphale's pulled Crowley out of countless situations that went pear-shaped when his demon was angry with Heaven and blackout drunk, but he couldn't be there all the time. Once they're safe, things start to surface. Aziraphale does his best to cope.“I wanted to talk to Her.”You freeze, stop struggling against what you know is the uncanny strength of angels. “Bloody well what for?”He’s behind you, speaking close to your ear. “Things are – well, different now. I couldn’t reach Her before, but now Heaven knows to stay out of my way … Because you were me, and did it so well. I thought – well, that I might intercede for you. Ask Her to say that you’re still Hers. Give Her blessing.”“Fuck blessings.” You can tell that hurts, but he doesn’t let go. “She didn’t do any blessing when…”When you plummeted into the darkness and the flame. Just the first time that something called itself love and turned to hurt.“Yes. I know.” He finds your hand. The smell of the spilled Malbec is blooming through the shop. “I found myself wondering… if She might be willing to say She was sorry.”
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley & Original Female Character
Series: The Shelter Of Your Wings [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1593487
Comments: 65
Kudos: 222





	Someone To Walk Beside Me

**Author's Note:**

> Bookend piece to _Someone To Watch Over Me_ (I hadn't planned on it, but a request in Comments can make me do terrible things). I've never worked with material that called for an archive warning before, and I can only hope I've done it justice.
> 
> CW for past sexual trauma and unhealthy acting out. While there is no explicit non-con or rape depicted (though strongly implied), and this is about resolution and healing, please use caution if these are issues for you. The voices in my head say Be Safe.
> 
> If you're here for the sex, be aware it hits a hard bump early on, though I promise you it gets better. I struggled with the tags, because this is not porn in the usual sense, but the explicitness is in service of the story (and, well, I tried to make it nice for them as they leave the angsty part in the rearview).

It’s not as if the hours at the Ritz hadn’t been salted with looks, touches of the hand as you struck glasses, but you didn’t let yourself believe that what you were seeing was real. It's still hard enough to grasp that everything's been restored: _When I was last here in my own form, everything was burning, I couldn’t feel you anywhere on this Earth, and I was all the way down in that pit again, the personal Hell She made just for me when She damned me and then showed me you._

And now he’s pulling you to him with one hand at the small of your back, the other slowly counting its way down your spine, as if to make sure he’s got hold of the entire serpent. The kiss is firm, deliberate, and after a moment you open to it, as if you’ve been doing this for years (oh, you have -- in that cold, echoing museum you built for yourself, in the bed you made sure was large enough for both of you, so that you could pretend).

“Now," he says. "As you may know, above this shop I have a flat. And as you might or might not have imagined” – all this time, he’s interrupting himself with more little flicking kisses, like the bubbles of the Ritz’s champagne popping one by one – “in that flat I have a bed. And unless you have any objection, I am going to take you to that bed, and there I am going to make love to you the way I should have been brave enough to do the first time I wanted to.”

You don’t ask when that was. Questions later. This hardly feels like something that’s actually happening.

He steps up to the first tread of the spiral staircase, turns, extends a hand _._ It’s like being invited back up into the Heaven that cast you down _, ego te absolve._

The bed’s of a piece with his taste, scrolled headboard, tartan duvet, absolutely ghastly, and there’s nowhere else you’d rather be. It doesn’t look as if he spends much time up here, but there’s a dressing-gown thrown over the chair in the corner in the same godawful tartan, and on the dressing table and bedside a scatter of the kind of tiny jars that say _very costly_ , colognes and what not, you can't remember not knowing how he smells, a little like the Garden and a little like home.

You realize you’re looking up at him with the sappy adoration that rose uncontrollably to your face on the walls of Eden. ( _He smiled back. And then you remembered who you both were.)_ He kneels to pull the boots off, and you drop your hands to his shoulders, your face to the top of his head; the sun-silk hair feels the way you always thought it would, impossibly soft, full of his scent.

“I can’t believe that I was going to let you leave me,” he says.

“Didn’t, did I?”

“I was afraid that this time you’d – go where I couldn’t follow…”

“This time?”

He doesn’t explain. You’re not sure what he means, but it’s so good to be here, arching your back under his stroking fingers, that you let it go.

You could get used to this. Sliding down lazily, letting him unwrap you like a birthday gift. Little rakes of fingertips over your ribs, just this side of tickling. Feeling his lips and nose wander over you, realizing that he’s _smelling_ you, breathing you in, the way he ponces about with his wine decanters. Of course he would, the big sensual bastard. “Not fair,” you say, “your turn to take something off.” It’s dreamlike; this easiness, this banter, after all the bickering and the arguing and the prickliness. He works his way out of one shirtsleeve, and the bare thick arm is so warm and snug around you that you could slide into sleep, except for the way his lips travelling over you are sending field dispatches down your belly and below your beltline. He’s always liked what he could taste and consider.

“Tell me what you want from me, darling.” (At the word _darling_ a lift drops away in your stomach: the corners of your eyes cramp with the force of tears trying to escape.) “I’ve made you wait so long.”

“Only what you want.” If he doesn’t need you, the same way you’ve craved him all this time, your heart’s going to die a little.

And so he gets you both out of the rest of the annoying clothes. “I used to wonder how you would feel,” he says. “Whether there’d be – something snake about you, if you’d be cold, I thought about warming you – “

There’s certainly enough heat between you now. Kissing makes you want to move against him, and for awhile it’s enough. You never thought you’d get even this. But eventually that soft hand – you can picture a manicurist working away at it, scrubbing away every trace of roughness, because it’s like being stroked with silk velvet – cups around one cheek of your bum, the forefinger ghosting along the top of the cleft and pressing in slowly as it strokes down to linger in the spot where you imagine being opened, filled with him. It skates back and forth, lightly, making everything between your legs tighten against you.

“Is this all right?” _Oh, Satan, yes._ “Something you like?”

“Keep going, we'll find out.”

“I'm, uhm, well aware that I’m entering sacred ground here.”

“Funny way to talk about a demon’s arse.” You’re trying to push against that phantom touch.

“Nevertheless. Every part of you is holy to me.” And damn him, he _takes his hand away again_ to thumb nipples, navel, the straining tip of your cock – a little gush meets him – “every bit,” and returns the fingertip to draw a circle around what is apparently the Holy of Holies with your own wetness.

The fingertip slips in. It’s good, and it’s also frightening. It shouldn’t be setting off alarms at the same time you’re trying to ask for more of it with any movement you can make (language, apparently, has gone offline). You ignore a little cramp of resistance, pull yourself to him with one leg over his hip, breathe into it; rock against that hand _(Satan, angel, stop teasing),_ the finger rubbing just inside in a circle, then sliding out again, _please don’t make me whine like this_ because that’s exactly what you’re doing. His weight shifts, a little clink of the jars on that side table, of course, it’s Aziraphale, there’s no shortage of expensive emollients, and this time a second finger follows the first, he’s hard against you but holding back, taking his time.

You don’t know why things suddenly seem far away, wrong end of the telescope, why a little hum of something wrong is trying to revive at the back of your mind; go away, shut up, it’s safe now. Neither Heaven nor Hell are coming for you. You’re slick and you want him, just let it happen.

You don’t expect the heat of him; your serpent nature craves warmth, but this almost burns. There’s a moment of panic, a knifing pain; it’s nothing like a finger or two, and you jerk back and hack out a little cry with the shock of it before you can stop yourself. He freezes.

“I’m hurting you.”

 _No. Not now, after all this._ “No. It’s all right. Go on.”

He goes on. He’s gentler this time, slower. You still can’t help a hiss.

“ _Does_ it hurt? Please. You have to tell me.”

“It hurts,” you say, “don’t stop,” and try to pull him in close with both hands. He’s not having it. Neither is your traitor body, which is starting to shake as if it wants to come apart, a flash of memory, a snapshot –

“Oh, _Someone,_ angel. I – “ You turned the world inside out with words, once, and now they're frozen in your throat.

“Please. Talk to me.” He’s utterly flustered. The room’s dim now, but no one wants to move to switch on a light or even miracle one.

“I thought – “ Face buried in his neck. “I’ve done this with – angel, I made it go away, but – “

“Shh. It doesn’t matter. Shh.” He doesn’t mean _don’t speak_. He only wants your heart to be quiet, because it’s slamming against the place where your chests touch. Now you _are_ cold, you shouldn’t be, weren’t a moment ago, but your teeth are this close to chattering, and you have to clench them and draw three or four shaky breaths to make it stop.

It’s a long few minutes before you can go on speaking.

“I’d find them. Mortals who made me think of you. It’s – hard to bring it back. Let 'em have me. Hurt me, sometimes. Made sure I’d forget. Always drunk enough first to blank it out.” He’s gotten his arms around you, one hand rubbing circles between your shoulderblades, where your wings hide. “Priest, once, d’you believe that? On brand, right?” You try to laugh, but it sounds pale and quavery.

You can tell he’s casting about for _something_ to say. “I hope at least _he_ was kind.” (He hurt you, and he called you a Hellthing.)

“I knew – Crowley, I know you did things – you’d be drunk and angry and – I’d follow you, I was enough of an idiot to think I was always there to follow you – " You rummage in that dark, cracked-open memory box. He’s in it too: holding you up, easing you down. Plucking you out of the fire.

“So this is how you get me finally. Pretty filthy mess, everyone’s had a go.”

His hand traces your outlines. “You are as beautiful, and clean, and perfect as She first made you.” A little thrum of desire's still there, and you try to pretend away the fear that still hums right along with it.

“Try again? I think I’ll be all right.” You don't, but you're damned a second time if you'll let him see it again.

“No,” he says, and that hurts more than the pain did; you’re already losing him ( _please, I’ll be better, give me a chance)_ and suddenly his hand’s over your heart and it’s as if a silent burst of light traveled through it and into you. You go quiet.

“There will be _absolutely nothing_ more that could make you hurt today. You already had to face down the Heaven that cast you out. You -- " He searches for words to describe what's just happened. "People who looked like me hurt you, Crowley, and you let them -- " You're already crumpling in on yourself, as if that was _your fault_ too, as he goes on, " _because_ they looked like me. No. I told you I would take you to this bed and love you, and right now, this is how I mean to do it.” He gathers you close. “Because I hurt you too. We had this, all the time, between us – and I denied it to your face. If I’d – said _something –_ maybe you wouldn’t have done those things."

“You still came for me. 'f'I'd known.”

“Some of that too, when you weren’t around.” His tone’s a little sly and wicked, and it takes a moment to get his meaning, and the laughter – you sense it’s a little gift – makes things easy again.

“Just be with me, my love. We have all the time in the world now. It’s been a long few days.”

* * *

There’s light when you wake, and you can hear him moving around the flat. You’re wrapped in sheets and blanket and well-stuffed comforter, the room feels chilly when you emerge from that chrysalis, and you shrug on the tartan robe; you’re hugging it around you when he comes in bearing cocoa. Because of course he does.

Still here in his space, in the morning. You never dared hope.

For that, you’ll even drink the appallingly sweet cocoa. You might even get to like it.

* * *

It’s that way for a couple of weeks. You’re close, you sleep in his space, a few times he sleeps in yours (or at least, stays with you in the bed and holds you while you do).

You make a few more stabs at it, of course. Kissing and holding each other, those are okay. The angel’s hands gentling you down your serpent spine, scratching in your nape, definitely okay. Moving against one another, holding each other tight, works until it feels like the rhythm starts to carry you, and that echoing distance opens, the chill comes between you.

Anything would probably be fine if you got paralytic drunk, but that’s not how you want this, never was. (It’s not as if you don’t still share a bottle, clink glasses over a white tablecloth, but the stumbling drunkenness of the past just doesn’t happen.) You offer to take care of him somehow, to see what you can make work, but no, he says, I can wait.

So for now there’s tenderness, hands on one another everywhere (almost everywhere), kisses, embraces after nightmares (you never realized you had so many), walks in sun that seems to fall at a different angle. It’s a safe rhythm, the building of a refuge that’s never existed before.

Hell is silent.

So, you assume, is Heaven. You don’t ask.

* * *

Kip – who’s a barkeep at the Crumpet (or so everyone calls it, as in, go there to find a bit of) – may be the only woman who’s ever set foot in the place. She looks up when you enter; the late afternoon custom is sparse and she’s bored. Smiles. She likes you.

“Anthony. Haven’t seen _you_ in a while. Early for you.”

“Just meeting someone.” You’re done with temptations and chaos (well, all right, a little now and then to keep your hand in), but you never did let your job interfere with a few side hustles, and it’s time to wrap one up. “Business. G and T, go light on it.”

A sly look; she knows you have a racket or two. She’s been busy with a barmop, polishing glasses for later; she drops it and pokes around for that heretical American gin you like.

“So, what’s kept you away? Got someone? You got a glow.” That catches you off guard; you can tell by the way her smile widens that your face has gotten away from you. “First time I’ve seen you when you didn’t look ready to tear a strip off someone. Something must be going well.”

You try to be offhand. “You could say that.”

“Seen it before, worked in here long enough. Always makes me happy. –There you go, run a tab? Yeah, I know where my tips come from, but you know, kind of hate to see people leave with a different guy every night. Carly and me, been together nine years now, best years of my life.” She winks. “Don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”

You find yourself smiling. “Then I won’t.”

“Only I’m perishing to know.”

“Maybe another time.”

You don’t ask who she saw you leave with. Or how many times. Fair is fair.

* * *

The sun’s coming in strongly when you wake in your own bed the next morning, and for once he’s not just beside you but sleeping – naked, beautiful, all gradual curves and softness and the glint of the early light on hair like white gold. It’s tempting to touch, but even more desirable to simply take in the sight while it lasts; peaceful, his breathing long and slow, the little worry lines that Heaven etched there gone from his face.

You’re already a little hard, a little full; that’s just a thing about waking up, and you take hold of yourself almost unconsciously; if only… well, he’s sleeping. You’ve done this before, in this bed, thinking of him, never imagining he’d be next to you. It feels risky and reckless and impossible to resist. You roll to your back, close your eyes, think of those moments before the past sandbagged you, when your tongues were in each other’s mouths and you could feel him big and luscious against you. It’s just your own hand, it’s all right.

It’s tranquil, doing this with the steady heat of the sunbeam through the glass painting a little band of warmth across you, feeling your breath quicken a bit, the slow rocking take over. This is something you can just keep for yourself, a good memory to put in that crammed and angry box; all the other times you hated yourself afterward, who were you even to think about him –

You realize you felt him shift a moment ago, and when you look he’s propped on one elbow, head resting on his hand, the blue eyes impish.

“That’s a lovely sight.”

Your hand quits moving, but your cock doesn’t get the memo and flushes a little harder.

“Don’t stop on my account.” He reaches to rest a hand lightly on your chest, and you sigh with the contact and breathe in against it. Touching almost anywhere, okay. You go on, and shortly he leans in to kiss you, very delicately, as if he knows this is fragile.

You take the hand that’s on your chest and move it down to cover your own. It feels right.

“Are you –– “

“With me.” Showing him how you like it, tight down and loose back up, working the skin back. He picks it up.

Spreading your fingers apart; he gets what you’re doing, and meshes his own in between, so you can move together. He’s taking over the rhythm a little, and it’s okay, as long as your hand is there too. There’s that little lightning-stroke through the base of the belly that says something’s going to happen, it’s going to be good, he’s got his thumb over the slippery tip and it’s all his movement now, you slide your hand out to cover his, just to keep yourself safe. Your own breath is rasping in your ears from what seems far away, there’s the beginning of that echo that’s the world trying to disappear from you and then you’re past it, bucking up into his hand, you can’t go on controlling it and he’s got you, tight for you to push against.

He lets those last few movements be all yours, and what happens isn’t the hard, almost painful implosion you remember from doing this yourself (in this bed, so many times), but a soft release that fills your whole skin, pulsing and fluttering for a long time. You realize you’ve been hearing your own voice, nothing coherent. Your belly’s a mess, and your hand, and his. It doesn’t seem to bother him.

When you turn to look finally, he’s in a magnificent state, and you reach to trail a finger up him – slick with you, as is the hand he moves to still yours.

“Not just now, my dear. Much as I’d love it. It’s beautiful to see you like this, and I want you to have it all to yourself. Enough for a first try, don’t you think?”

But he lets you pull yourself to him, sticky catastrophe that you are, and kiss him as if you’ll never get enough of it.

* * *

After that, it’s easier. It’s not long before you get to return that morning’s favour (you do it the same way, together, so that he can show you what he likes, and the look on his face when he comes goes straight into that new collection of perfect memories that you’re assembling to replace the old, dark blurs). Something you didn’t expect to discover is that Aziraphale, whose prim constraint’s always made you dream of shattering it, has a perfectly filthy mouth in the heat. Splashing onto your fingers, he shouts _fuck me_ (even though that’s not, technically, what you’re doing) loudly enough that they can probably hear him next door (admit it, you’re more proud than mortified). His mouth on you flips to the _okay_ side of the line, and the praise he lavishes on your Effort, on the taste of you, on the sounds you make, is equal parts poetry and tender smut.

“Where did you learn to talk like that?” you ask, legs tangled, trading lazy brushing kisses.

“My dear, it’s not as if the _only_ books I read are antique grimoires.”

“Books, right. Pull the other one.”

Having him treat your body as if it’s every delicious thing he’s ever tasted, that all but undoes you, and you try reciprocating but you can feel the freeze coming on, something happened there. It doesn’t matter. There’s always something that works.

There’s always his kindness when something doesn’t.

* * *

It’s not just bed, as much of that as there is now. It’s the change in the feel of day to day. You’re so free of each other’s space that you have to work to remember how your flat walled off the world (but also kept out the warmth that was Aziraphale); how the bookshop felt like a stolen refuge. Now you’ve exchanged keys, and bits of him surprise you in all the corners of your habitation – an embroidered handkerchief on the side table, a pair of reading glasses in the front room, a volume of Tennyson marked with a scrap of ribbon. Aziraphale finds you in the tartan dressing gown so many times that he says _Keep it_ , and miracles himself another one.

He wants you there when the shop is open (it wasn't always that way), and calls you over from wherever you're lounging , sometimes, for nothing more than a quick kiss. You've always bounced him about chasing customers away, but now you're all but jealous when he gives them even that attention. You finally have him to yourself, and you're covetous of that, you never want it to change.

He takes you to the Physic Garden in Chelsea, imagines with you that you’re picking out plants for the cottage and garden you’ve started to talk about – heart’s-ease, angel’s trumpet (“get you higher than a kite, that”). The American tourists show too much sunburnt skin, and their kids are too loud, but somehow, it doesn’t grate on you the way it once would have. (All right, you do make sure that one set of shoelaces gets tied together.)

You retrieve a little more of what’s in that dark box of memories – it’s not all horrible, just nothing much to be proud of – and he says _You don’t need to tell me_ but you do, some of it, and he holds you and doesn’t say anything. You wish he would, and you’re afraid he will.

You come into the shop one day to find him leaning on the bottom of the spiral stair’s baluster, gazing upward, pensive.

“Do you know,” he says, pushing himself upright, not turning to look at you yet, “sometimes I've looked up there and tried to remember the way Heaven was before – before everything changed. When we could still see Her face. We all felt so loved all the time. I missed it.”

You feel a little chill. He’ll never stop being an angel. He turns his head finally, and catches your look.

“I don’t mean now, my love. I’ve got you.”

He wouldn’t lie to you. At least, you’re pretty sure of that. You wrap around him from behind, _serpent will bind your arms, hold you fast._ His head drops back against your shoulder. You don’t let go.

* * *

“I saw him.”

Kip’s hunkered down, doing something under the bar, but pops her head up when she hears you pull up a pub stool, done with the day’s business. Her eyes are mischievous.

“In the park the other day. You were holding hands, totally busted. He’s cute.”

You have _never_ thought of Aziraphale as _cute._ “Thought you didn’t fancy blokes.”

“Got two eyes, don’t I? Bet you know when a woman’s a sort.”

“Ah, but Kip, I fancy everything.”

“No you don’t. I saw you. You fancy him. Full stop.”

You can’t be put out. She’s too happy for you.

“Little old fashioned, but it’s sweet. That hair. Run through it barefoot, hey?”

_He’s a soldier of Heaven and he saved the world with me and he was on this earth when your most distant ancestor was nothing but a coil of chromosomes, but, yeah, Kip. You’re right. He’s cute._

“Usual?” She’s already clinking ice into the glass. “So when you gonna bring him around?"

The idea of Aziraphale in the Crumpet is world-bending. He’d be blessing the rent boys and miracling the broken glassware whole. But you're still not ready to share Aziraphale with anyone, not even Kip.

She hands over the G and T. Winks.

“If I could bottle that smile, we wouldn’t be able to sell booze.”

* * *

When you come back into the shop – the year’s wearing on now, dusk comes earlier – something’s not quite right about the light. The chimes are soft, you close the door gently; you can hear him speaking, but not the words. A few steps, and you see him; he’s alone, veiled from you by a bluish shimmer that rises from a mandala of symbols on the floor right up to the dimming skylight. Candles surround it.

You drop the carrier you brought in, smelling the uprush of tannin from a broken wine bottle, feeling fear naked on your face. The last time you saw an open fire in here, it was an inferno and there was no trace of angel. He’s still talking to Heaven, can’t break the link, why would you have thought – Your eyes meet through the watery light. He snatches up one of the candles, blows it out.

The column of light disappears. You kick the broken bottle aside (the hell with the rug, see if you can miracle that out) and shake and stamp out the rest of the flames, _what the fuck are you doing, angel,_ _wasn’t once enough?_

“Crowley, I – “

“Still lonesome for home? I’m damned well not.”

“That’s not – “

“Coming in here and seeing _fire_ –– “ The thunder of the updrafts from those burning shelves is still in your ears. It’s threatening to blow that box open, the one with all the pain and shame in it.

“I wasn’t – _Crowley.”_

His arms are around you and it horrifies you that you’re twisting in his grip, trying to pull away, still shaking a bit from the sight of the fire.

“I wanted to talk to Her.”

You freeze, stop struggling against what you know is the uncanny strength of angels. “Bloody well _what for?”_

He’s behind you, speaking close to your ear. “Things are – well, different now. I couldn’t reach Her before, but now Heaven knows to stay out of my way … Because you were _me_ , and did it so well. I thought – well, that I might intercede for you. Ask Her to say that you’re still Hers. Give Her blessing.”

“ _Fuck_ blessings.” You can tell that hurts, but he doesn’t let go. “She didn’t do any blessing when…” _When you plummeted into the darkness and the flame. Just the first time that something called itself love and turned to hurt._

“Yes. I know.” He finds your hand. The smell of the spilled Malbec is blooming through the shop. “I found myself wondering… if She might be willing to say She was sorry.”

The tremors calm, but you're still angry, still hearing that thunder.

“I don’t _need_ it, angel.” You look down at the inscribed circle, the broken candles. “I don’t need Her.” He doesn’t flinch at the blasphemy, but he lets you step away.

“Sorry, angel. Gotta do some thinking.”

You don’t look back as the chimes on the door see you out.

* * *

“Everything okay?” says Kip. “Didn’t expect you back tonight.” She sets another whisky in front of you. You’re pretty sure it’s the third.

The place is filling up; soon the tarts’ll be doing a good business and the already loud music will get louder. That’s when the world goes a good distance away. You’re working into it.

“Wanna tell me about it? All of a sudden you look like shite.”

“You’re busy.” You knock back a good mouthful of the stuff. Balvenie, twelve years old. You should probably treat it better than this.

“Merrill just came on. His regulars all want to flirt. Also he can mix those crap girlie cocktails better than I do.”

You swirl the whisky around the ice; a little water, brings up the aromas.

“Didn’t break up, did you?” she says more softly.

“Nah. Just a – bump.” Another swallow. “Dunno. It’s – sometimes I’m afraid he’s never going to let go of his family, you had that?”

“My first. Packed in the middle of the night and went back to divinity school.”

That makes you snort. “Yeah. They never wanted him to be with me. Pretty clear it was me or them.” Almost down to the bottom. “Our age, ought to be past that… reckon it never ends. Not like they treated him very well.”

“Sometimes that makes it harder to let go.”

“Didn’t for me. I’m not goin’ back.”

“How long did that take?”

There isn’t an easy answer to that. When did it happen? When did Aziraphale become more important than, well, anything? _You smiled at each other, that first day. You remembered who you both were_. You don’t remember it mattering to you.

“You know,” says Kip, “eventually you’re going to have to start trusting someone. What has he _said_?” Her voice is getting comfortingly distant. You whiff the vapors, those last few swallows are always full of the peat and sea air and honey.

“Nothing really. Wanted them to – well, give me another chance. Fuck that.”

She takes another order then, Dubonnet, someone’s an amateur. Handing it off, goes on, “Told you I saw how you looked at him, remember?”

“Yeah.”

“I saw how he looked at you too. He’s not about to put anyone else ahead of you, just call it dyke’s intuition. Trust me, we second guess everything.”

You push the glass at her. “ ‘Nother.”

She takes it, pauses for several seconds.

“Nope. You know what? Barkeep’s discretion. You’ve had enough. I’m cutting you off.” 

You haven’t got an answer, only a little ball of anger rising where one should come from.

“Go back and talk to him. And you’re just this side of too drunk to do that. Just go, Anthony.”

You hold her eyes for a moment, then something in you softens; it’s Kip. Pull out your clip to settle up, add a big tip, but she doesn’t reach for it; she’s looking over your shoulder, then back at you, tilts her head to follow that brief glance. Finally takes the cash.

You turn, and there’s Aziraphale – looking ridiculous, stodgy and beautiful, in this neon-lit Amazon jungle of chancers and drunks and beardless rent boys. The little crease of worry between the brows, the slight pout and quiver of the underlip.

He slips in beside you.

“You weren’t at your flat. So I’ve been into all these dreadful places,” he says. “How do you stand the noise?”

You look straight ahead. “You get used to it.”

“I don’t think I ever will,” he says. “Come home? Please?”

_You could just trust him._

“Well,” you say after a moment. “Money’s no good here any more.”

You don’t miss Kip’s eyes on you as you leave, or her nod.

* * *

You’re halfway back to the bookshop before he speaks. The cold air’s cleared your head.

“Did you get your, ah, thinking done?”

Later for talking. “Yeah.”

“I broke the circle. It seemed as if it was time.”

You reach, slide your hand into his. There’s nothing else said till the door closes behind you.

The air still whiffs like a winery. As he turns the latch you gather him up. It’s a long, soft kiss.

“So,” you say. “Since you picked me up in the Crumpet, I’m assuming you might want to take me to bed.”

“I believe that you might. Ah. Have the right shop.”

“Then show me what you’ve got to sell.” The second kiss isn’t nearly so polite, before you know it you’re wolfing him, licking up that little pout, feeling the nip of those epicure teeth. He’s learned how much you like them against your throat, denting the skin while he sucks it up between them, leaving a signature, a bookplate: _this demon belongs to the Principality Aziraphale, Guardian of the Eastern Gate._ A safe, sweet hurt with a beginning and an end.

Get rid of that absurd jacket you love so much, the reading glasses chinking as you drop it onto the desk. You’ve never tried to undo the tie and you’re making a bollocks of it.

“Ought we – ?”

“Probably.”

You had thoughts of leading him up that stair, as he led you, but he seems to be in a hurry, the self-indulgent bastard, and there you are like _that_ in the tidy little bedroom. You bear him down against the coverlet with your full length, your cock doing your thinking for you (it’s quite a repetitive train of thought but it yields some moments of great insight), and the way he moves suggests that your respective Efforts have come to a place of philosophical agreement. He’s still got something to fuss about though.

“Dear boy – these _are_ cashmere – “

All you’ve got for that is a growl (and a hand with the fastenings, which are horn buttons, probably circa 1890). You realize he’s always the one who undresses you. Change is good.

“Is this – “

“Fine, angel. It’s fine.” That stout Effort is silky against your lips and he smells impossibly of fresh air and whatever expensive unction he last pampered himself with. And there’s nothing in your mind but him, that box of darkness is firmly shut, can’t even find it. “Been drinking a bit too much, need something on my stomach.”

You feel a deep shudder of breath pulling into his belly as you take him in; any time you might’ve done this in the past is gone with the old bad memories, but you’ve got his exemplary model to refer to, and he certainly doesn’t seem to have any _complaint,_ though you can tell he’s holding back a little, trying not to push. Raise your head, wrap him in your hand: “It’s all right, beautiful, just let yourself,” and dip again to tongue and taste him. You’re not sure about him finishing this way, the thought makes your stomach swoop a little, but you can bring him close, lift away, he’s panting out sweet filth now and pulls you back up to kiss him (it’s very sloppy and it goes right to your centre, the way that burst of light from his hand went, the first time when this sweetness hurt). You work yourself the rest of the way out of your trousers, which became a postponed project when his came off.

“I have,” he murmurs in your ear, “always adored your arse.”

The attention he’s giving it seems to bear that out.

“Only I didn’t want to – “

“Just keep doing that.” Those soft hands kneading, pulling you against him, containing you, it’s safe, it’s _him._ You get your knees on either side of his hips ; reach blindly to that little collation of jars and fumble till you find what you want, bring it to his hand.

“Are you sure?”

“Get _in_ there, angel.”

The first touch takes your breath, and you’re waiting for the distance, the echo, but it doesn’t come; there’s only the slow reverence of being opened like a rare book, explored like the shore of a new world. He’s taking his time, working his way in deeper than before, while you prop yourself on his shoulders, kneeling up, give a craftsman room to work. (He didn’t learn _this_ from books, and you’ll chaff him appropriately – you’re still a demon after all – but you’re not going to complain about however he _did_ learn it.) There’s a little way he curls his fingers, _fuck,_ you’ll come if he’s not careful, he feels you pulling away and mistakes it for _stop._

“I’m sorry – “

“ _Sssssssssssss.”_ You drop back against him, and he’s splendid, just begging to be lodged against you, pressed down on – another hiss as you shift him with one hand, take him in – latch slipped, way open.

It doesn’t exactly _hurt,_ it’s just that it doesn’t exactly not, but being full of him like this is worth it, and you lift up, working one leg, making the smallest movement. You can feel a helpless little trickle pleading to be rubbed over you.

“You don’t have to – “

“ _Get your hand on it.”_

Aziraphale gets his hand on it. He's still slippery from working you open, and holds you snug while your movement rocks you into it. It makes taking him in easier. There’s just a little burn, the fullness makes you pause every few seconds and breathe your way through it, but the last thing you want is to stop. The angel’s hand is writing a whole romance on your cock, he’s learned what fetches you, telling you that he wants you to take all of it, to come for him, how much he loves the sight. You brace one hand on his shoulder and bear down, bottoming out, hearing what that does to him.

Raise yourself again, let him fuck into you; you can tell how much of his strength and desire he’s been holding back, until now. Both hands on him, long fingers splayed over his chest, tightening in the curled blond thatch, his hand is stuttering on you but it’s too late for that to make any difference, you’re already starting to spill onto those broad soft fingers. It makes you clench around him, now he’s got both hands on you, pulling you down to him, and coherent language has left the building but what he’s got left is crude and tender and glorious. When he strains into you finally for a long moment you press down to meet him, then fall forward, laughing quietly.

“That was amusing?”

He’s refound his vocabulary. Instead of answering you pepper him with kisses, lips, cheeks, the broad pale shoulders.

“ _God,_ I love you.”

“”Not angry with Her any more then?”

 _She made you,_ you think. He traces a finger over your face.

“You assuredly did not learn _that_ from a book.”

“Told you… they weren’t all – horrible. Just weren’t you.”

* * *

Aziraphale reflects upon his demon, coiled bonelessly in layers of tartan duvet, catching the glass just as it slips from the jet-nailed fingers. A little nightcap seemed the thing, but he’s hardly touched it. Now there’s the gift of seeing peace in that face.

 _It’s because of them, really,_ he thinks. _They’re so fragile, so temporary. They have to learn to love each other, with nothing but those brief, clumsy, breakable bodies; no wonder they do it badly, most of the time. But some of them do it very well. And we lived with them, and it changed us._

_Maybe that’s why She sent a part of Herself to be one of them, to know what it is to be that uncertain and wounded, and still love._

He sets both glasses on the bedtable, an angel who wouldn’t return to Heaven if he could, and puts out the light.

* * *

“You didn’t need to do that, Crowley.”

“She’d been pestering you over that book for twenty minutes. Won’t hurt her to remember an appointment she didn’t really have. ‘S’what we do, ennit? Rescue each other?”

“We should really learn to depend less on miracles. We’re part of this world now.”

“Yeah, right, learning from them. You banged on and on about it this morning. Gotta be careful about fucking you, makes you too philosophical.”

“Just some things I was thinking after you went to sleep…”

“Well, in that case, can you live through an hour of _bebop?”_

“Whatever for?

“Close up and get your coat. We’re going down to the Crumpet for a drink. Someone I want you to meet.”

_finis_

**Author's Note:**

> Crowley's heretical gin is the Green Hat distillation produced in the American capital. He'd done a bit of business with George Cassiday, the official bootlegger to the US Congress during Prohibition; when a craft distiller honored Cassiday’s memory by naming their gins after his signature green headwear, it couldn’t help but intrigue a nostalgic demon. Kip imported a case.
> 
> If you liked, share, reblog, comment! Authors are always thirsty :)
> 
> Come say hello on Tumblr @CopperPlateBeech


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